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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22474489">for worse or for better</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/platonics/pseuds/platonics'>platonics</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Body Image, Depression, Eating Disorders, Established Relationship, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Killing Game Was A Virtual Reality Simulation (Dangan Ronpa), Lowercase, Mild Sexual Content, No Dialogue, Non-Linear Narrative, Nonbinary Shinguji Korekiyo, Other, Post-Canon, Self-Esteem Issues, Stream of Consciousness</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-01-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 10:53:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,828</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22474489</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/platonics/pseuds/platonics</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>all of himiko's friends were so pretty.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Shinguji Korekiyo/Yumeno Himiko</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>31</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>for worse or for better</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>do u ever just think abt how himiko's the only v3 character repeatedly called ugly and insulted for her appearance when she's almost certainly not ugly at all? i do. this just...happened. not quite as heavy as the tags make it seem?? maybe??</p>
<p>in regards to the ed tag, himiko doesn't believe herself to have one and kinda lumps it in with her bad self-image in general, but there's def narrative focus on weight/thinness and certain body types being (in her mind) inherently tied to beauty. partially based on my own experience/Bad Thought Patterns so pls be careful and don't read this if u think it could trigger u &lt;3</p>
<p>bit of a stylistic experiment idk,, the start of the new semester has me so tired and i've barely had energy for writing outside of rp which makes me big sad</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> all of himiko's friends were so pretty. this was a fact, one she was acutely aware of. some more than others, maybe, but the distinction was there all the same. part of the appeal of danganronpa was meant to be that the ultimates were sculpted out of ordinary people. the ads and trailers were all 'this could be you,' because how else could they get teenagers to volunteer to do this shit to themselves? they said that, and sure, the virtual reality could smooth out imperfections, adjust bits and pieces here and there like glossy magazine photos. that didn't explain how even out here in the real world, her friends were so beautiful and she was so...not.</p>
<p>	angie was pretty. she covered up more these days, but it was still obvious. himiko rewatched killing game footage on youtube, still in her pajamas at 4 pm and curled up under three different blankets. angie drew her gaze sometimes, though she'd be ashamed to admit it. her toned abs, the curve of her chest, the way she didn't seem to think about it at all. like the confidence to walk around in a bikini top all the time was nothing. himiko could be a supermodel and still not have that kind of confidence, so maybe her ugliness was incurable. terminal. nothing to be done.</p>
<p>	she bought padded bras, feeling stupidly childish about it, like a 12 year old wandering down that aisle for the very first time. the bright artificial light of the store glared down at her, judging. 'where's your mom, huh?' it seemed to say. 'clearly you still need someone to lead you around by the hand.' nobody was looking at her, huddled in the clearance racks, but it felt like everyone was. she wanted to take off her face and paste a new one on. she hid the stupid, polka dot bras underneath her other purchases and went through the self-checkout so she wouldn't have to look a cashier in the eyes.</p>
<p>	when she tried one of them on at home, locked in the bathroom with just her own critical gaze for company, she felt even stupider. her shirt fell a little nicer this way, she supposed, tugging at the fabric. it wasn't a huge difference, but compared to her usual flimsy bralettes, she didn't look quite so flat. miu's voice echoed in her head, bouncing against the walls of her skull. that grating tone calling her titless, jailbait, ugly, every insult in the book. played on repeat, 24/7. maybe she was trying too hard. stupid. she swapped her t-shirt for a thick sweater that swaddled her frame, biting her lip hard enough to bleed.</p>
<p>	donkey lips. dumbass. loli. a droplet or two of red fell from her lip. good thing her sweater was black.</p>
<p>	they changed little details of everyone's appearance for the show. for himiko, it was in the interest of making her look younger, of making her fill a niche. out here, she was a little taller, a little heavier, edges a little rougher. she was a couple of years older now besides, but at 20, there was no hope of any more growth spurts down the line. she was stuck at 5'1", dancing on the border of 90 pounds. still very petite by anyone's measure. like a fairy, maybe, if you felt like being charitable. ruder names if you didn't. she was tiny and everyone said so, but she was painfully aware of the slight roundness of her stomach whenever she wasn't consciously sucking it in.</p>
<p>	she poked at her lunch, pushing salad leaves around her dish instead of eating them. she would, in a few minutes, when she worked up the willpower. first, she discreetly curled her hand around her opposite wrist, focusing on how effortlessly her fingers could overlap. small. thin. like the rest of her, though it was hard to believe. she didn't have problems with eating, not like that, it was just...her meds demolished her appetite, and no detail of her appearance was too inconsequential to hate now and then, really.</p>
<p>	she was soft where she shouldn't be — god, sometimes she wished she had just a fraction of maki's muscles, she was so gorgeous — and not where she should be. fat and bone and nothing in between.</p>
<p>	and kiyo barely ate either, so they had no room to judge her on this. they were going through the same routine of playing with their food across the table from her. also medication induced, but himiko was pretty sure that even off the antidepressants, they'd probably just forget to eat. another thing she could relate to. she gazed over at them, lips pursed thoughtfully. her hand had moved to curl around her glass by now, thumb tracing lines through the condensation.</p>
<p>	korekiyo was so pretty. the prettiest of all, in her undoubtedly biased opinion. they weren't soft at all, like their body didn't even know the meaning of the word. they were all flat planes and sharp angles, geometric architecture. a veritable skyscraper of bones. just what you might expect from someone who was never allowed to be gentle, only they <em>were</em> gentle now. they were slowly learning what it was like to be allowed, and their gentleness was sometimes clumsy and quizzical, eyes gleaming as if awestruck by their own ability to touch without hurting.</p>
<p>	she reached across the table to hold their hand, condensation-slick fingers dampening their skin. if she wanted to, she could encircle their scarred wrist almost as easily as her own, and that lit her organs on fire with an emotion she couldn't name. she would never, ever understand what they saw in her.</p>
<p>	they were so elegant, so beautiful. himiko could write a bookful of odes to their body, and another three books' worth to the person within. miu (so obviously, conventionally hot it wasn’t even worth the breath spent explaining) sometimes muttered to herself when people-watching or scrolling through instagram — idle, dramatic comments like 'i don't know if i want to be her or fuck her,' and himiko had never understood that sort of sentiment until she got close to kiyo. </p>
<p>	she understood it too well on too many occasions. it was that blurry, intractable feeling of wanting to curl up small and crawl inside their ribcage, to steal just a little of their aura, their poise, all the things that made even the people who hated them stare. it was having that feeling at the back of her mind even standing in their room with her hand up their skirt and her mouth on their neck (she had to awkwardly crane her own neck and lean up in order for her lips to reach, looking like a fool for an audience of cobwebs). it was their legs being perfectly smooth when her own slipped between them, and knowing hers were prickly from not shaving them as often, and being almost more aware of that than their shaking breath.</p>
<p>they even bruised pretty, a bit of trivia she was happy to be the only one to know. the mask came in handy for hiding hickies.</p>
<p>it was the way they could wear absolutely anything and look gorgeous in that tall, willowy model kind of way, fabric draping artfully in ways that would make her look like she was wearing a tent or a garbage bag. tsumugi was like that too, in a curvier, more understated kind of way. if she was a little more cynical, and knew korekiyo a little less, she might try to brush it off in her head as evil being sexy. it was the way most of their bones jutted out just a little too much. hips, wrists, collarbones. shoulder blades, like wings. an angel of death in green-black silk and lace that matched their hair, splayed across the fabric of her sheets.</p>
<p>their smeared makeup and their pants on her floor and their whispery little moans and why why why were they with <em>her</em></p>
<p>they asked her, expression sated and post-sex sleepy, what she was thinking about. she said she was thinking about how beautiful they were. that was true, and it was also true that she spent the next 14 hours angry at her skeleton, mapping out its lines and ending up unsatisfied.</p>
<p>shuichi was the only one who seemed like he might be haunted by the same kinds of thoughts as her, but himiko didn't understand why. he was plenty cute, with soft hair and gentle eyes and not one but two boyfriends to lavish him with praise. then again, she also had a partner to lavish her with praise and it didn't change a thing about the bitter monster in her chest, so maybe she was just a hypocrite.</p>
<p>even tenko was pretty, loathe as she was to admit it. she was pretty, in an athletic, fashion disaster kind of way, a million miles away from korekiyo. the bruises weren't pretty at all the time tenko punched them unprovoked, weeks after waking up. tenko's broken nose wasn't either, but himiko thought her own scraped knuckles might have been, in a vicious, nasty kind of way. maybe she was ugly on the inside too.</p>
<p>sometimes kaede tried to cheer her up when she was particularly gloomy, like her sunshine smiles and piano playing could heal everything. himiko wished they could, because she knew half the time kaede was faking it too. kirumi baked cookies and they sat at the dining room table, eating them and drinking tea. the scent of warm sugar made her feel weirdly lonely, and the myriad pill bottles stared at her from the counter, all labeled with different names. almost invariably she'd slink off to drape herself in kiyo's lap and let them read aloud to her.</p>
<p>nothing more intimate than that happened on those days, chaste kisses and whispered words of affection. himiko forced herself to remember that they hated themself too sometimes, that almost all sixteen of them did, and that didn't make her feel better, only selfish.</p>
<p>	other times though, things were good. they took selfies together and made faces at the camera, trying out all the different snapchat filters. that smoothed-out version of her looked like she might actually belong next to kiyo. those words accidentally slipped out once, and they kissed her, saying she always belonged next to them, no one else ever could. they clasped her hand gently against the couch cushions, brushing their thumb across her knuckles. the next time danganronpa promo shots came in the mail, they put them all through the paper shredder.</p>
<p>sometimes, half-asleep, they tugged her over to lay atop them like a weighted blanket, and mumbled 'i love you's into her hair. happy, home-like sounds drifted up from downstairs, maybe kokichi's mischief or kaito shouting about constellations, and kiyo told her she was beautiful. those times, she believed it, holding on tight to the moment until it passed.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>a couple other lil tidbits bc i just cannot shut up today:</p>
<p>1) shuichi's bfs are kokichi and rantaro if u were curious</p>
<p>2) let! korekiyo! wear! skirts!</p>
<p>comments water my crops ty ty</p></blockquote></div></div>
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